{"id":2024,"date":"2012-01-27T21:44:05","date_gmt":"2012-01-28T02:44:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/?p=2024"},"modified":"2012-08-25T13:34:18","modified_gmt":"2012-08-25T17:34:18","slug":"codys-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2012\/01\/codys-conversation.html","title":{"rendered":"Cody’s Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Cody Mahler<\/p><\/div>\n

When I asked\u00a0Cody Mahler<\/a>\u00a0to write something for me\u00a0about the friend we both lost<\/a>, he wrote back: “I have to sit down with Carl and discuss what he would like me to say.” They must’ve had a great conversation, because this is what he wrote:<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I CALLED HIM MISTER MOOCH<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everybody knows that he is dead except me
\nWhy don’t I know it yet?
\nMaybe because we were downstairs when he went to bed
\nWe were downstairs and he went to bed because he had a sore throat
\nHe had a sore throat and he didn’t want to spread any germs
\nHe didn’t want to infect anybody
\nHe particularly didn’t want to infect Signe
\nWho had offered to bring him up some soup that night
\nWhen we had called him on the phone expecting to meet him
\nDownstairs
\nAt the gallery
\nWhere we were planning to join him in the festivities
\nNo, he said he was tired
\nI told him a couple of funny stories on the phone
\nwhich I can’t remember now
\nHe was not too tired to laugh
\nHe could laugh no matter how much it hurt
\nAnd there was nothing more he was waiting for
\nThan a chance to get a good laugh
\nA good innocent laugh
\nOr a even bitter caustic laugh at hypocrites
\nWho he shrugged off with fine chosen words
\nAs fine as the cakes and cheeses and ciders and wines
\nHe brought us
\nAnd such fine things we had for dinners that we invited him to
\nOr dining out in the “ghetto” as we called it
\nSlumming was the word we used
\nin his neck of the woods
\nI called him Mister Mooch
\nWhich by definition is a man that mooches off people
\nTakes their comforts and their food
\nIt was an intimate joke between us
\nHe was never a mooch
\nHe was our friend
\nAnd nothing can take that away
\nSigne just said I forgot something
\nWe asked Carl once
\nWhat his favorite meal in the world was
\nAnd he told us spaghetti and meatballs
\nSo one night
\nI made them
\nJust like my mother did
\nAnd he was about as happy
\nAs anybody I have ever seen!<\/p>\n

— Cody Mahler<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Feb. 3 —<\/strong>\u00a0Cody writes in an email message:<\/em><\/p>\n

Here is another scribble … I feel like poems are standing in a long line waiting … and they don’t mind the wait … they are patient … they chat among themselves … they don’t push to get ahead … some poems even go for a little walk and never come back … we find these poems sometimes staring at a river or gazing up at an old house or standing on a street they played on as a child … sometimes we leave these poems where we find them and sometimes we drag them back into line … in the end it does not matter what happens to poems … they always know what is best for them …<\/p>\n

Yesterday after a long forced march to the chemical company Roche through the Siberia-like cold front I returned on a tram to Carl’s neighborhood. I went to Sultan’s grill (where we had gone on a couple of occasions with Carl) … I devoured a Doner Kebab and then went next store to the Turkish bakery for a little treat … I must have looked like a homeless man. The young Turkish guy handed me a sweet and when I asked him how much, he said nothing, it costs nothing … I had to laugh. I guess in a way I was homeless. Another place or person gone that we called home. That is how it feels much of the time.<\/p>\n

The sun stares at the cold face of a winter day
\nlike the dead stare at the living
\nGod prays for the dead
\nwho pray for God
\nAnd the earth listens
\nAnd waits for some movement from below
\nThe toilet flushes upstairs
\nSigne is asleep on the couch
\nI read poems all day
\nTo bring back the dead
\nWho promised to meet me today
\nWith word of Carl
\nwho promised to explain to me
\nWhat happened since he died
\nWhat happened to the night
\nWe were supposed to meet
\nAnd how will I describe it
\nHow he came downstairs unexpectedly
\nAnd greeted us
\nThough he had a sore throat
\nHow he drank a glass of red wine
\nHow he lingered just a few moments
\nBefore he returned upstairs
\nTo his apartment
\nHe excused himself
\nSaid that he didn’t have much time
\nBut that he would come
\nAnd pay us a visit
\nOn evenings when we can’t face
\nWhat has happened to him
\nHe will wake us gently
\nAnd laugh at the absurdity of his death<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I asked\u00a0Cody Mahler\u00a0to write something for me\u00a0about the friend we both lost, he wrote back: “I have to sit down with Carl and discuss what he would like me to say.” They must’ve had a great conversation, because this is what he wrote:   I CALLED HIM MISTER MOOCH Everybody knows that he is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2024","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-literature","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-wE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2024\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}